Obviously (what's the Left problem with GM food?)

[Brad DeLong]

>Genetic modification could be a good or a bad thing, depending on the
>use to which it was put. Doubtless if it was done recklessly, with real
>risk then that would be a bad thing, but what risks there are seem so
>wildly overstated that it is hard to find a convincing example of that.
>
>The left's accommodation to its own lowered horizons has led us to
>substitute the socialist critique of capitalism with the romantic
>critique of industrialisation. Where people once aspired to change the
>way society was, they find that programme less inspiring. By contrast
>the petit bourgeois reaction against industrial society is stronger than
>ever. Genetic modification is the acme of industrialisation, and
>provokes a middle class response from uncompetitive small-producers and
>consumers' lobbies.
>
>The left, despairing of ever mobilising a working class reaction against
>capital has decided to make do with a middle class reaction against
>industry...

Nicely put. A modern left whose parent is not Marx but Carlyle...

Brad DeLong